Jackson rides again with his latest deranged Ibrox “disasterpiece.”

Every Monday guys. Every Monday. Never a day off. Never a change in the scenery. Never a break. Every Monday without fail I have to read Keith Jackson and almost without exception I find myself having to dismantle his latest rubbish. Today is no exception. It’s the head-bursting rule.

Today’s article is awful. It’s part love-letter to Barry and part warning note to the incoming board. If they are really incoming; Jackson seems to think they are running the whole club already by whatever means.

The whole article is dreadful. As I know none of us wants to spend longer on this guy than is necessary, let’s jump into it so we can be done. Let’s start, as ever, with the crap headline. Not his work, sure, but his name is on it so I see no reason to let him get away with his share of the blame for it.

Ibrox takeover chiefs made to look wet behind the ears by this whole carve up – Keith Jackson

These guys aren’t even in the building yet, and Jackson is accusing them of … what exactly? Wet behind the ears? If that’s true, whatever that criticism means, is there any point to the takeover going ahead? He’s branded them failures already.

Andrew Cavenagh has instructed Patrick Stewart, Kevin Thelwell and Gretar Steinsson to conduct interviews

Andrew Cavenagh is in no position to tell anyone at Ibrox to do as much as changed the paper in the copiers. In case this hasn’t sunk in yet, he’s not completed the takeover of as much as one share far less the 51% he requires.

So now we find out what the men in charge of the new star spangled version of (the Ibrox club) are really all about.

No, we’ll find that out once they really are in charge. If they ever are.

Over the course of this coming week Andrew Cavenagh will instruct sporting director Kevin Thelwell and Gretar Steinsson of the San Francisco 49ers to conduct and oversee a series of interviews with a number of candidates for the manager’s position.

Again, he’s giving instructions to people at the club who he doesn’t presently employ to hire the most important person at the club? No wonder we laugh at this lot. If this is true then we’re through the Looking Glass alright. Because guys who don’t have as much as one share are puppeting the whole club. If these guys really are making key strategic decision pending an incomplete takeover then that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard over there in a long time of crazy things over there.

Barry Ferguson had already been spoken to as one of the last men standing. On Thursday of last week Ferguson held discussions with Thelwell and Steinsson and he left that meeting with enough serious reason to believe he was a front runner for the post.

If he did then it was largely in his own head because I’m quite certain they gave him no reason whatsoever to believe anything like that might happen. Ferguson knew full well that he was not getting the gig. His body language all last weekend practically screamed it. He let his frustrations about it bubble over in his rant about how he’d have got more respect if he had been a foreign manager.

But all that changed suddenly on Sunday when Ferguson was called and told his services – and that of coaches Neil McCann, Billy Dodds and Allan McGregor were no longer required.

Not a surprise to people with even one functioning brain cell.

This bolt from the blue will have come as a hammer blow to all four of them and to Ferguson in particular. He was growing into the role and looking like he was born for this very moment even if he was lumbered with a group of players who could not be relied upon to turn up for work.

Bolt from the blue? Rubbish. It was certainly not that. A hammer blow? If they were delusional enough to think they had a chance having accrued such a pitiful win ratio in their short time in charge then too bad. People that dense really aren’t worthy of sympathy. He was “growing into the role”? Where? When? How? Really? Are you sure? Or are you just taking the piss? He was floundering like a drowning guy tied to a cinder block. And to keep blaming the players for this … dear God. His record in those last few months was far worse than what Clement would have gotten out of these same players. Ferguson didn’t return a home win for months.

In fact CEO Patrick Stewart and chairman Fraser Thornton have been so impressed at the manner with which Ferguson handled himself throughout that they will probably attempt to tempt him into taking on another position at the club.

Put him in charge of handing out the wee paper flags at the main gate for the “Going for 56” campaign at the start of next season. It’s about all he’s qualified to do. He will be a lot better at that than he will be at being a manager. But I am intrigued by this claim just the same; Thorton and Stewart actually wanted to hire him? But again, we come back t o the central problem; if they did they’ve been over-ruled by a bunch of Dave King wannabes who don’t even own as much as a share. That should be troubling for some people. Either that, or Jackson is talking through his backside.

Something bigger, better and more significant than the ambassadorial gig he had been holding until he was asked to hold the fort on the back of Philippe Clement’s sacking.

Put him in charge of putting out the cones for training then. Wherever he’ll be, he’ll be far away from the action. You can’t put him in a senior club position, especially if the new manager is Ancelloti because Ferguson has already had a wee rant about how they shouldn’t be hiring someone like that. If he’s at the club in any significant capacity he just becomes a voice nipping in the manager’s ear … or undermining him behind his back. Surely even those at Ibrox can’t be that stupid?

Whether or not Ferguson is minded to stick around remains to be seen. He will, with some justification, believe that he has been slighted by this decision to look elsewhere when he sees himself as the solution staring them in the face.

If they were making the decision based on merit he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He was hopeless. Look at all those empty seats in the stadium. The fans know what they were being asked to watch. Neither Ferguson nor his coaching staff even remotely deserved to be hired. By the way … I could swear that it’s not that long ago that Jackson himself wrote that Ferguson already knew it wasn’t going to be him and had pretty much accepted it. I refuted that, based on Ferguson’s own public comments. Now he’s just refuted it himself, and as usual he’s wrong. Ferguson hadn’t faced up to that at the time Jackson wrote it. Last week, he had. It’s all there in the transcripts. He’s all over the place this guy. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s on about.

It may take him time to process the decision as well as the fact that he was so close to living out his dream on a more permanent basis. He felt he could make a difference. And that he proved as much over the course of his three months at the helm.

Jesus Christ. There is barely a person living in Scotland who is not confined to an institute for the insane who thinks Ferguson proved that he was up to the job. Not one single person in the commentariat thinks it. Not one Ibrox fans believes it, and let’s be honest, we’re not dealing with the sharpest people alive here. They all look at that record and draw the same conclusion. The appointment was a joke. We’ve all had our mileage out if it having a good laugh. The joke’s over. Clowns, go back to your desks and prepare for … err … your Daily Record columns.

Ultimately, Thelwell and Steinsson will have to carry the can for turning Ferguson down. And they had better hope that they know what they are doing now the list of candidates has been whittled down for the last time.

They will have to carry the can for turning down a manager who had about as much talent in the job as I would have brought to it. (And Ferguson wasn’t even attempting to sabotage it from within, which would have been my primary goal from the first day.) Whatever decisions these people might make in the fullness of time, however bad some of those decisions might be, this is one they’ve absolutely gotten right.

They had better have their wits about them after being made to look a little bit wet behind the ears by the whole Davide Ancelotti and Don Carlo carve up from the other week.

Agreed. Amateur hour. Trying to appoint a rookie boss is bad enough. Having it blow up in their faces is almost as bad. And this “Don Carlo” stuff was a shit joke the first time. Does he have to repeat it in every single one of his subsequent columns, by Christ?

This column warned them from the start the father and son combo might be mounting some kind of false flag operation after news began to flood out of Spain that Ancelotti Jr’s imminent appointment at Ibrox was pretty nuch a fait accompli.

False flag operation. Dear God. If Ancelloti Jnr is as good as some of the hype that has surrounded him in recent weeks then he shouldn’t need to be dabbling in the dark arts just to get his first management gig, should he? It’s like Hagi Snr constantly assuring the world that his son is brilliant. Hey, Daddy, if your son was all that we could see it for ourselves, eah? We wouldn’t need you drawing our attention to it.

Even though the club’s thorough recruitment process hadn’t even entered the interview phase at that point.

Jackson has gotten so much wrong on this that there’s literally no reason to believe him on that. The reports in Italy and Spain were very clear the process was well advanced and their sources are better than those of a guy who sits by the phone every day and waits for someone from Ibrox to tell him what to write. Thelwell wanted to hire the guy at Everton; this is a known fact. This story is not a surprise, nor is a false flag or whatever else Jackson wants to call it. They really do want to do this.

The curious and unseemly rush to get it all out there in full public view, all the way from Madrid to Milan, meant the whole proposition failed a very obvious smell test.

Dear oh dear. A curious and unseemly rush to get stuff into the public domain. Written without a trace of irony by the guy who was used to leak the story about the American takeover in the first place because the club had just lost in the Scottish Cup to a lower league team. One of the reasons for all the mistrust around the takeover story is that Jackson himself was the source of it. On top of that, this story surfaced in Spain, written by people who do know what they are talking about. So this wasn’t an “unseemly rush”, it was a leak and they happen all the time.

Yes, (Ibrox) – and Thelwell in particular – may rate the young Ancelotti highly and, for as long as he hasn’t put to pen to paper on a contract with the Brazilian FA, there is still a chance that the Italian could be lured to Ibrox to finish what he started when the eye fluttering between the two began.

Eye fluttering. Christ. If there is a crap third rate analogy out there, you can trust Jackson to find it and write it. That’s dire stuff. If only it was the worst one in the article. He never bothers to recognise that if there was “eye fluttering” in the way he means it that there were negotiations underway … what an idiot this guy is.

But, even so, it does feel very much as if the initial interest from Glasgow has been used as some form of leverage to make sure that the Ancelottis can continue their professional partnership as the old man attempts to add a World Cup to his personal trophy collection.

Yeah cause if he really does have interest from Saudi, from France, from Italy, from Spain and elsewhere as many of the reports have suggested what he really need to give his reputation a jolt was a link to the second best club in the SPFL.

If (the Ibrox club) come to the conclusion that they have been played for mugs and worked from the back then they ought to remove Ancelotti’s name from their list of potential targets as well on a point of principle.

In other words, even if the rookie decides that a move to Ibrox is detrimental to his own career prospects – and “sacked in Scotland after eight months” is not a great start to it – then the club would be happy to have it out there that they did the walking away. Reports from abroad suggest that he’s said “thanks but no thanks.” Time will tell. But the people who approached him aren’t going to be the ones to end the talks.

Otherwise they might be in danger of looking naive and uncertain of themselves.

By getting snubbed, you mean? Not really. Even if I think this idea is barmy – and I do, as I’ve said already – getting snubbed by a guy who will have better options and doesn’t fancy working under a restricted budget for the worlds most ungrateful fans is nothing to do with the board being “naive and uncertain.” The job just isn’t that interesting or attractive. Not even to a first time boss with a famous name.

And, let’s be frank for a moment, there is serious reason to doubt whether it belonged there in the first place.

The one part of this article in which I’m in total agreement. It’s madness. And it should be a big red warning sign for all the nutters who expect tens of millions in the transfer war-chest and all manner of other transformational changes which aren’t going to come. These people have a plan, for sure … it is not the one the hacks have in mind, far less the mad fantasies being dreamed up over on Follow Follow.

Yes, Ancelotti’s Ivy League education at centres of excellence such as the Bernabeu, the Allianz and the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona as well as the family name makes him an attractive prospect.

Ivy league education. Told you fluttering eyelashes wasn’t the worst you were going to read in this article. Dear oh dear. And for the record; being “assistant to Daddy” will never make anyone an attractive prospect, not in any field, not in any business, not in any industry in the world.

But the fact remains that he’s yet to step out of his father’s gigantic shadow and, until he does go it alone, it’s impossible to know with any certainty if he’s got what it takes to become the real deal as a manager.

Which hasn’t stopped some in the media hailing him a genius.

He’s not so much the Special One. He’s more like the Risky One.

Dear me. Another tired analogy creaking under its own blundering weight.

And this doesn’t feel like an appropriate moment in time for (the Ibrox club) to start playing Russian Roulette or taking reckless punts on a man who has already given them reason to think twice about the level of his sincerity and integrity.

What reasons are those? Supposition and bullshit from Jackson here. He’s lucky none of these people ever feel inclined to sue. I do agree, it’s a Russian Roulette style punt, but in some ways it does make perfect sense. No experienced manager is going there any time soon. That leaves you looking at some mad punt.

Ferguson summed it all perfectly following the final day 2-2 draw at Hibs on Saturday afternoon when he stressed that the next man in must not be viewed as some kind of ‘project appointment’.

Which suggests strongly that he knew he wasn’t getting the gig and the Ancelotti talks were much further along that Jackson would have you believe. Why in the Hell does this guy never put two and two together to come up with four?

Ferguson has been around this club long enough as a boy and man to understand fully the demands and expectations which come with the jersey.

Rubbish. It’s those “demands and expectations” – many of which are staggeringly unrealistic – which are causing half of their problems.

He knows that whoever gets the gig – whether it’s Ancelotti or some other fresh faced graduate straight out of coaching school – patience and good will cannot be taken for granted.

Quite the opposite. The next Ibrox manager is on Death Watch the moment he signs the contract. Twelve months and ticking. Few even last that long.

On the contrary, it will be exhausted within the first few months of the coming season if Celtic and Brendan Rodgers are racing clear again at the top of the table, in the same emphatic manner as they have been doing over the last couple of years.

Yep. The prospect of it makes me smile already.

If (Ibrox) do not make serious inroads towards shattering this monopoly then the next manager will go the same way as the last one. And so the cycle of repeated failure and endless rinsing and repeating will begin all over again. Just under new owners.

And I am eagerly anticipating the many, many articles I will write on the subject.

By offering Ferguson and his staff a rolling one year contract they would also have minimised their exposure to risk, rather than handing out another bumper three, four or five year deal to an unknown quantity.

Again with this! Ferguson is not an unknown, that’s a fact. It’s what they do know about him that puts them off. And for once they are right.

They may live to regret yesterday’s decision to concentrate their efforts elsewhere.

Ultimate in BS. That means that the next Ibrox boss to get sacked we’ll have to hear all this rubbish about how “that would not have happened to Barry.” Isn’t it pathetic the lengths to which Jackson will go to canonise his buddy? Poor choice of phrase that one, but at least when I do it it’s deliberate and part of the joke.

If the new man can’t make material inroads into Celtic’s dominance from the start of the campaign then they may soon have to put another one on gardening leave for the foreseeable.

They must have more guys on “gardening leave” than they have working as groundskeepers. Perhaps the Americans are aware of that and see it as one of the areas in which they can save a few bucks. Get wee Barry out there with a rake and some grass seed. Get him working the sprinkler system. Maybe that’s the new role they envision?

And, if that happens, perhaps Ferguson might not be quite so willing to step into the same old mess.

He’s made part of the mess! Why isn’t this clear??

So now we find out what the men in charge of the new star-spangled version of Ibrox are really all about.

Back where we started, and with the same basic hole in the theory; they aren’t actually in charge there yet and maybe they never will be. This has to be one of Jackson’s worst articles in a long, long time.